pppd problem again????

Dear all,

Now that I have installed FC2 I noticed that the active-filter option is
compiled in the new distrib. Thank you all on that (and for the new
Fedora.... really nice)

BUT:
Now I have another problem. pppd daemon keeps on complaining that:

May 28 20:59:28 gw pppd[4643]: error in active-filter expression:
inbound/outbound not supported on linktype 0

I looked on tcpdump man page (and pppd) but no answers there!

Now what?
The previous problem is fixed (tha fact that pppd needed recompilation to
support active-filter and then wvdial did not work with pppd) and now there
is a new one. I have the filling that this cameout of the new kernel! true?

I do not need to mention that it is a VERY needed option, to make clear to
pppd when to drop the link as idle.

Thank you all again.
Sincerely,
Theophanis

Theophanis Kontogiannis <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> Dear all,

> Now that I have installed FC2 I noticed that the active-filter option is
> compiled in the new distrib. Thank you all on that (and for the new
> Fedora.... really nice)

> BUT:
> Now I have another problem. pppd daemon keeps on complaining that:

> May 28 20:59:28 gw pppd[4643]: error in active-filter expression:
> inbound/outbound not supported on linktype 0

It shouldn't complain, my pppd doesn't. The standard pppd version from
2.4.1 on correctly implements the filter options. This is in my standard
pppd connection script:

active-filter '(outbound and not (icmp[0] = 0))'

It works a treat.

> I looked on tcpdump man page (and pppd) but no answers there!

The tcpdump I have does object to inbound/outbound in the manner above,
but there it's a bug that's never been fixed. Maybe the FC crowd thought
it was better to change the pppd filter code to agree with the tcpdump bug.
Bad Idea.

> Now what?

Get the pppd source, 2.4.1, at ftp.samba.org in /pub/ppp, configure
the Makefile to get the filter code, compile it, and use the resulting
pppd binary instead of FC's.

> The previous problem is fixed (tha fact that pppd needed recompilation to
> support active-filter and then wvdial did not work with pppd) and now there
> is a new one. I have the filling that this cameout of the new kernel! true?

No comment (except this one , since you don't say what kernel version,
it's probably not relevant anyway, and I never use pppd frontends like
wvdial, kppp, ect.

> I do not need to mention that it is a VERY needed option, to make clear to
> pppd when to drop the link as idle.

Changing the Makefile and compiling your own is not that hard.

-- Clifford Kite Email: "echo xvgr_yvahk-(E-Mail Removed)|rot13"
PPP-Q&A links, downloads: http://ckite.no-ip.net/
/* ... packets usually cross many administrative boundaries on their way
from a source to a destination and often the only point of agreement
between those separate administrations is that all problems are someone
else's fault. --Van Jacobson, abstract of April 97 MSRI talk */

I did try to recompile the pppd-2.4.2 but it did not make any difference.
(by the way pppd shipping with FC2 by default has filter enabled / compiled
in)
2.4.1 does not compile. It needs a patch for net/bpf.h that is not available
in the 2.4.1 tar ball. Available on 2.4.2.

The kernel shipping by default with FC2 (2.6.5) has PPP_FILTER enabled by
default.

I said that the problem must have something to do with the new kernel (!!!)
compared to FC1 (2.4 kernel) where the filter worked just fine.

Well this is were my knowledge on programming stops.

If anyone could help more on that it would be really helpfull.

Sincerely,



"Clifford Kite" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Theophanis Kontogiannis <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:
> > Dear all,
>
> > Now that I have installed FC2 I noticed that the active-filter option is
> > compiled in the new distrib. Thank you all on that (and for the new
> > Fedora.... really nice)
>
> > BUT:
> > Now I have another problem. pppd daemon keeps on complaining that:
>
> > May 28 20:59:28 gw pppd[4643]: error in active-filter expression:
> > inbound/outbound not supported on linktype 0
>
> It shouldn't complain, my pppd doesn't. The standard pppd version from
> 2.4.1 on correctly implements the filter options. This is in my standard
> pppd connection script:
>
> active-filter '(outbound and not (icmp[0] = 0))'
>
> It works a treat.
>
> > I looked on tcpdump man page (and pppd) but no answers there!
>
> The tcpdump I have does object to inbound/outbound in the manner above,
> but there it's a bug that's never been fixed. Maybe the FC crowd thought
> it was better to change the pppd filter code to agree with the tcpdump
bug.
> Bad Idea.
>
> > Now what?
>
> Get the pppd source, 2.4.1, at ftp.samba.org in /pub/ppp, configure
> the Makefile to get the filter code, compile it, and use the resulting
> pppd binary instead of FC's.
>
> > The previous problem is fixed (tha fact that pppd needed recompilation
to
> > support active-filter and then wvdial did not work with pppd) and now
there
> > is a new one. I have the filling that this cameout of the new kernel!
true?
>
> No comment (except this one , since you don't say what kernel version,
> it's probably not relevant anyway, and I never use pppd frontends like
> wvdial, kppp, ect.
>
> > I do not need to mention that it is a VERY needed option, to make clear
to
> > pppd when to drop the link as idle.
>
> Changing the Makefile and compiling your own is not that hard.
>
> -- Clifford Kite Email: "echo xvgr_yvahk-(E-Mail Removed)|rot13"
> PPP-Q&A links, downloads: http://ckite.no-ip.net/
> /* ... packets usually cross many administrative boundaries on their way
> from a source to a destination and often the only point of agreement
> between those separate administrations is that all problems are someone
> else's fault. --Van Jacobson, abstract of April 97 MSRI talk */

Theophanis Kontogiannis <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote:

> The kernel shipping by default with FC2 (2.6.5) has PPP_FILTER
> enabled by default.

> I said that the problem must have something to do with the new
> kernel (!!!) compared to FC1 (2.4 kernel) where the filter worked
> just fine.

I'm running 2.6.4 compiled from a standard source and have no problem
with the active-filter option when using pppd 2.4.2, also compiled
from a standard source. It's hard to believe the PPP support code
in 2.6.5 would cause the error. The only change from 2.6.4 is

[PATCH] Patch to hook up PPP to simple class sysfs support

according to

ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/kerne...hangeLog-2.6.5

Looks like FC may not have changed the pppd code. If I jumped to a
wrong conclusion then I apologize. Here's the line in the standard
pppd 2.4.2 code that generates error:

pppd/options.c: option_error("error in active-filter expression: %s\n", pcap_
geterr(&pc));

Perhaps your libpcap and mine differ, and mine does the right thing.
It was installed back in late 2002:

-rw-r--r-- 1 root root 135878 Oct 21 2002 /usr/lib/libpcap.a

Anyway something is different, since the pppd (2.4.1, 2.4.2) filter
options work great here.

--
Clifford Kite Email: "echo xvgr_yvahk-(E-Mail Removed)|rot13"
PPP-Q&A links, downloads: http://ckite.no-ip.net/
/* "Be liberal in what you accept, and conservative in what you send"
RFC 1122 */